


the tuxedo makes it a date

by georgiamagnolia



Series: What if he really is Illya Kuryakin? [3]
Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E., NCIS
Genre: Alternate Future, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgiamagnolia/pseuds/georgiamagnolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a night out with friends is the best medicine for what ails you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the tuxedo makes it a date

“Abby my dear, have you a moment to spare?”

Abby spun and her short skirt and pigtails flew. “I always have a moment for you, Ducky.” Abby smiled and stepped around her work table to hug her friend and coworker, then leaned back and gave him a long look, keeping her hands on his shoulders. “What’s up?”

“I have an invitation for an art exhibit that I think you might find interesting. I wondered if you would be free next Friday evening to attend with me.”

“I am absolutely free next Friday.”

“It’s a formal occasion, a fund raising event of sorts. There is a dinner after but if you have plans you can skip that if you like.”

“Oh no you don’t, you aren’t getting out of taking me on a whole real date that easily.” Abby grinned when Ducky looked up at her in alarm. She hugged him again and laughed. “Relax Ducky, I know you don’t want to break Rule Twelve. But I will still pencil you in for the whole night next Friday.”

“Careful what you ask for Abbs,” Gibbs’ voice surprised her from the doorway, “eventually you’ll get it.”

“Hardly that, Jethro,” Ducky said with a smile as he turned toward his friend. Abby simply sighed and went to her computer to bring up results on the latest case they were working.

“Seven sharp, Miss Sciuto.”

“With bells on, Dr. Mallard.”

Ducky grinned as he left them to their evidence, thinking that she may well wear bells. The image amused him the rest of the day.

***

She was not wearing bells when Ducky came to pick Abby up the next Friday evening, instead she was wearing an elegant burgundy dress and black heels that added only two inches to her height, though she could have gone barefoot and still towered over him. He smiled at he thought that she had worn them for precisely that reason. “You look delightful, my dear.”

“Thank you, Ducky, you are looking very handsome yourself,” she leaned over and kissed his cheek, then checked to make sure she hadn’t left lipstick. “You always look so elegant in a tuxedo.”

Ducky smiled his thanks. “It’s getting chilly, do you have a wrap?”

Abby turned and pulled a black cape off the back of her couch, Ducky held it for her and she fastened the shiny black button at her throat. When she turned it flared around her and he could see that it was lined with the same coloured satin as her dress.

Ducky helped Abby settle into the passenger seat of his Morgan and when they were on their way he said, “I have a little surprise for you, Abigail.”

“You do?”

“We will be having dinner with a pair of your favourite people. Napoleon will be escorting Ally to the art show and they have agreed to join us later.”

Abby laughed, a joyful sound that Ducky loved to hear. “I knew you had to have some ulterior motive.”

“But not the usual ulterior motive.”

“No, of course not. But still a lovely evening for a date, thank you for inviting me.”

“Hardly a real date, my dear.”

Abby reached out and put her hand on her friend’s arm, “Ducky, just because it isn’t romantic doesn’t mean it isn’t a date. Sometimes we just need a night out that is fun and wonderful and lets us forget the troubles we have. That’s what family does, right? Helps leave the trouble behind.”

A cloud passed over his expression and he wondered what trouble he might have missed in Abby’s life while he was distracted by his own. He determined that he would do his best to find out and help her if he could. In the meantime they both obviously needed a night away from their usual lives. He smiled at her quickly before the light turned green and they were driving forward again.

  
The event was well attended and the crowd seemed happy to open their pocketbooks if the amount of ‘sold’ signs displayed was anything to go by. They had made their way halfway across the gallery when Ducky spotted Napoleon and his niece Ally. He reached out and took Abby’s arm to direct her attention to the pair when Napoleon turned and smiled.

“It’s like he has a radar or something, isn’t it?”

“What do you mean, Abby?”

“It’s like with Gibbs, he always knows when I have results on evidence. Napoleon always knows where you are.”

“Not always.” Ducky frowned briefly, remembering the years he and his partner were without contact. “But perhaps we are just used to one another again.” Ducky could tell by the stubborn glint in her eye that Abby wasn’t buying it, but Napoleon and Ally joined them and the thread of conversation was thankfully lost in the midst of Ally’s excited greeting and Abby’s equally enthusiastic reply.

Ally wanted to show Abby her contribution to the show, it was a mix of student and professional works donated for the fundraiser. The men followed close enough to watch over the pair of women, but distant enough to let them have their fun.

“How is Ally settling in?”

“She’s been fine. It’s her mother that has been threatening to have the vapours. I suspect that Ally decided to attend college in DC not because the school is one of the best private Fine Arts schools on the East Coast but simply because it is in DC. I don’t think that Washington has as many negative memories for her as her mother would wish. But she never takes the subway in New York anymore, or a bus.”

“If that is the only fear she has after being kidnapped, she is a lucky girl.”

“She is a tough cookie, not one to let one little kidnapper get the better of her.” What Napoleon left unsaid was that the kidnapper had nearly gotten the better of him and his former partner. But the men never talked about that, a past better left buried.

“How have you been, Illya? I’ve barely heard from you since I returned from my trip to California. Did you finally get a chance to meet that woman you were telling me about?” Napoleon could tell by the look on his friend’s face that there was a story there, and not a good one but they were prevented from further conversation when one of the event organizers interrupted them.

  
“This is really well done, Ally, I am so proud of you!” Abby put her arm around Ally’s shoulders in a half hug.

“Thank you. I was so thrilled when my piece was accepted for the show. Now I just hope that someone will like it enough to give it a home. On the other hand it’s kind of like sending my baby out into the world, hard to let go, you know?” A shadow passed over Abby’s expression but was gone so quick that Ally wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it.

“Of course someone will want it, Ally. It’s amazing.”

“We should go rescue our dates, Abby.” Ally drew Abby’s attention to Ducky and Napoleon. “That’s one of the department heads and she is a maneater. She won’t let them go until she has a check or a phone number, both if she can get them.”

“Ducky insists this is not a date.”

“They are wearing tuxes, it’s a date.” Ally was adamant on the point. “And any time I have to wear heels it had better be a date.”

Abby laughed and they linked arms and headed for the men they had come to the soirée with, determined to rescue them whether they wanted to be or not.

  
The foursome made the rounds to all of the displays and had made it back to the entrance again.

“Ally, could you show me where the ladies room is? I think I popped a garter.” Abby leaned down and whispered in her young friend’s ear.

“Of course,” she whispered back. She turned and said a little louder, “Uncle Pol, Uncle Illya, will you wait right here? We need a minute.”

“Take your time, we’ll be here.” Napoleon smiled as the girls left with a giggle between them.

“Look at them, will you, are they never off duty?” Ally said when they came back out of the powder room, refreshed and garters once again intact.

Abby looked to where Ally had indicated and saw that the gold-digging department head was once again cornering Napoleon and she had brought reinforcements. The two women who monopolized Ducky and Napoleon came across as aggressive and obnoxious, even from across the room.

“Your nieces won’t mind your joining us for dinner, they are sure to find boys their own age to sit with, don’t you think?” The blonde was just this side of catty and reminded Ducky of someone he had known many years before. He wondered if that blonde had ever had children and almost shuddered.

“Only Ally is Napoleon’s niece,” Abby said as she slid between the blonde and Napoleon, linking her arm through his. “I am not.” Abby smiled sweetly at the woman and then looked at Napoleon with open adoration. “You mentioned something earlier about reservations, didn’t you?”

He hadn’t, but was happy to go along with Abby’s spur-of-the-moment distraction. “Certainly my dear, are you ready then?”

Ally linked her arm with Ducky’s and just smiled. They made it to the coat check with no further interference.

“Oh Abby, what a wonderful cape, where did you get it?” Ally asked.

“A friend made it for me, to match the dress. She was going to put a hood on it but I told her I didn’t want to attract any wolves.”

Ally laughed. “If the look that Ms. Parsons gave you when you stole Uncle Napoleon from her is any indication, it will be poisoned apples you need to look out for.”

“I’m sorry Napoleon, did you want to go back…”

“No, no, my dear,” Napoleon interrupted Abby’s unnecessary apology, “you read the situation correctly. I suspect that the lady in question discovered that my foundation was responsible for underwriting several scholarships and was interested more in my bankbook than my banter. You did talk us right out of a standard institutional rubber chicken dinner though. So if I may,” he held out his arm, “dinner elsewhere awaits.”

Abby took his arm and grinned. “You certainly may.”

They joined Ducky outside where he had gone to request the valet parking attendant to return their cars. The Morgan was just being driven up when Napoleon and the two women joined Ducky. Behind that was the sedan that Ally and Napoleon had arrived in.

“Excuse me a moment ladies,” Napoleon said and joined his former partner where he was talking to the young men who had brought their cars around.

“They match, don’t you think?”

Abby looked at the two men in tuxedos and long dark coats, watched them have a conversation that included very few words but was made of subtle gestures and looks, a language they shared with no one else. “They are two of a kind,” Abby agreed. “They broke the mold on those guys.”

Ally sighed. “I hope they fixed it, or I will never find someone to take home to meet the family.”

Abby laughed. “There’s time yet, Ally. There’s nothing wrong with having high standards.”

Napoleon turned their direction at that moment and called to them, “Ready ladies? Your carriages will be turning into pumpkins if you don’t hurry.”

“As long as our dates don’t turn to woodland creatures, that will be fine.” Abby grinned as they joined the men.

“Not a date, Abby.” Ducky smiled at her.

“Uncle Illya, let us have our little dreams.” Ally smiled and put on her best pleading look.

Ducky rolled his eyes but smiled at her, “As you wish, my dear.”


End file.
